What is Trillian?

Trillian is a project whose aim is to bridge the gap between astrophysical models and the vast amount of
publicly available astronomical data.

Astronomy produces extremely large data sets from ground-based telescopes, space missions, and simulation.
The problem is that no one institution can host all of this data, let alone have the resources to properly
manage it. The result is that applying analyses against full data sets across the wide range of wavelengths
available is either beyond the resources of most astronomers or currently impossible. Trillian will make this
simple and straightforward.

A primary component of how this will be accomplished is through a distributed, scalable computation engine.
An astronomer need only supply a model — in physical units — as a small piece of code and submit
it to Trillian. The engine will then apply this model against all data available. The user will not
need to worry about the details of where the data is or even where the computation is taking place.

Trillian is being designed with modern methods of data access and handling on a large scale (and even expects to push
the envelope in this space). As such, more detailed information about the project is best separated into two domains.

Features

Work with Physical Models

Define your model in physical units (e.g. temperature, surface gravity, luminosity, distance)
for any range of wavelengths and resolution. Trillian will pass it through each available
instrument and determine what it would look like as observed by that telescope.

Scalable

From the beginning, Trillian is designed to scale smoothly with the addition of new data.
Because data storage and computation is distributed from the beginning, expanding the platform
to use cloud services such as Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s Azure, or even spare disk space or CPU
cycles in a department server will be straightforward.

Distributed Data Storage

Data will be distributed across multiple institutions to accommodate as many sources
of information as possible. Have 1, 2, or 10TB to contribute? Just register it with Trillian, and
the system will handle the rest.

Logical Data Access

Data will be distributed based on position in the sky rather than wavelength. Data
“units” will be based on the Healpix grid
system, with each one containing measurements at all wavelengths available. Thus, all
information related to a particular object in the sky is in one location.

Open Source Development

All code related to Trillian will be open source from the beginning, located in this
GitHub repository. Contributions are
welcome equally from astronomers and developers who are interested in pushing forward
what we can do with science research, data, and computing. No science background necessary!

Public API to Astronomical Data

As one component of Trillian is to store large amounts of data, this provides an opportunity
for data access through a streamlined, consistent application programming interface. This API will be
made public as part of this project.